Hum
by one.twilight.sun
Summary: Her hair is a mess, black mascara painting circles under her eyes, her pajamas a thin protection in the chill but she doesn't care.


**Hum**

_Something of you still taut_  
_still tugs still pulls,_  
_a rope that trembled_  
_hummed between us._  
_Hummed, love, didn't it._  
_Love, how it hummed._

The gray mist of the morning clings to the boardwalk, the cold seeping through the thin soles of the slippers that she hadn't thought to change in her sudden urgency to come here. Her hair is a mess, black mascara painting circles under her eyes, her pajamas a thin protection in the chill but she doesn't care. For she'd been woken up on a scream and a need to find _him_.

Except she didn't know how because he had _left _her here, grounded her for "her own good", though he hadn't said the words. She'd thought it was a routine dirty-laundry drop at her mother's but then she'd come back to find that the blue box had disappeared along with the elusive Doctor. She hadn't wanted to believe it at first because she was _Rose _and he'd said he'd never do that to her: abandon her without a word. But he had.

And she hated him for it.

Or she wants to hate him, but can't.

She finds herself standing in freezing weather, looking up at the London Eye, her throat still locked in the scream of terror that had nearly suffocated her because she very much does not hate him. If Jackie had been there, she'd have tried to stop Rose from running out but Jackie was out and it was just Rose because the Doctor had left her and it was up to Rose to find out what was happening—all on her own.

She stands there, red-eyed, sad and afraid, staring at the great wheel. She doesn't know why she's there, only that she followed a _feeling_, a _knowledge_ within her that she needs to be here. She shivers under the jacket she'd thought to slip on at the last minute and watches as the first rays of sun lighten the gray up above.

* * *

He'd thought it'd get easier, this missing-Rose thing, but he was wrong. It hurts like it's never hurt before with all the companions he's had because she _wasn't _"just a companion". She's always been something more. He can't put a word to it or even five million words though he tries, when he finds himself in front of her door, fingertips lightly touching the wood.

Friend, lover of his soul, his third heart, precious, human, fragile, pretty, yellow, pink, lovely, amazing, mate, compassionate, love, the space between the stars, _inishar_, his lifeline, the pulse of his existence, beautiful, _his_.

But he couldn't keep her. _The Valiant Child, who will die in battle so very soon._ The sharp and biting fear that had stabbed him and made home in his bones at the Beast's pronouncement had driven him to do what he'd thought he'd never do with Rose.

Leave her.

He'd hated his deceit, fighting down the bitter taste that had threatened to crawl up his throat. She'd gone out those TARDIS doors, one last time, smiling at him over her shoulder. The doors had shut and he'd stood there for a full minute, staring, fighting with himself. He'd been selfish for too long, keeping her when she couldn't be kept, making promises he couldn't keep. She should've died a hundred times already and by the grace of whatever god that was out there, she'd lived. He wasn't going to play around with that any longer.

Starting up the TARDIS engines had been the hardest moment in his life.

But he'd done it so she could live.

And now, as he fights his way into the old girl's doors, one hand futilely trying to hold back the flow of blood from the hole in his chest, he cries because he could not do more before he dies. This wound will not heal and he will lose himself in the cleansing fire of regeneration. But first he must get out of here. His hand is slippery on the TARDIS door, the fingers missing the key hole. The shouts of those who hunt him can be heard in the brush and he curses before the door finally gives way.

Gasping he makes his way to the console, flipping the switch and setting the dial for any time that isn't now, any place that isn't here. The familiar engines start up and he tries to make it to the jump seat but fails, his vision going black before he reaches it.

* * *

Hours she'd stood there. The sun had fought it's way through the clouds and warmed her enough to loosen her hold on her jacket. Staring blankly at the Thames, she ignores the increased morning traffic, busy people with busy lives. She pays no attention to the people who pass by, giving the blonde woman in her nightclothes strange glances. She ignores it all because she's focused her entire being onto that call that she'd felt earlier this morning. It was as if someone had reached inside her and pulled tight on a string without her knowing before they suddenly let it loose, the note jangling wildly inside of her.

But it's come to nothing. What had been a full orchestra in the wee hours of the morn has faded to the tinkle of a triangle and she's afraid to know what that means.

She blinks back tears. There have been far too many of those of late. Her fingers are cramped around her arms and she loosens them carefully. The cars and people start to register on her as she comes back from across the galaxy and the not-now. Pulling one hand through her hair, she sighs and makes her way back to her flat.

It's when she's nearly to the cross street that she hears an unbelievable sound. It's the engines of the TARDIS and it's landing where she'd been and these thoughts barely register before she's already started running back in the direction she came, slippers slapping against concrete, reminiscent of that first time she'd run down this street with him.

Her face is in a smile because even though she should be pissed, she can't help but be excited to see him, but there's no one coming out of the blue box and Rose remembers screaming in terror this morning.

Her heart in her throat she reaches the TARDIS and lays her hand on the door, trying to figure out how to get in. A moot point of worry as the door swings inward, as if expecting her. She smiles tentatively upwards, not sure how to communicate with the ship but wanting to let her know she appreciates it all the same.

Then the darkness registers on her and the silence rings in her ears. "Doctor?" she calls out, stepping up to the console and then she sees him.

He's lying on his side on the floor, a dark stain around him. Her knees collapse and her hands aren't completely gentle as she turns him over to see his precious face bleached of color. She weeps because he can't be dead (_why hadn't he regenerated?)_and lays her head against his cheek, his face, as always, cool to the touch, colder. And she cries and puts her arms around him because this is what they do, they _hug_ and the world turns out all right.

She's too caught up in the grief, the prospect of a world without a Doctor out there _somewhere _even if not with her, to pay attention to the fact that a glow has started around them. Golden strands of Time and unnameable essence leaks out from her to him, loops and swirls in complex patterns, over and under, around and about, binding and tying an unbreakable knot with a flourish.

And he gasps, the breath of life, and it's a word on his lips, the last and the first, "Rose!"

Abruptly she stops crying and pulls back to look at him, his brown eyes are open and drinking her in and she can't help but laugh because she's a mess, her leftover mascara running, her nose runny and her eyes red, but she can see it in his eyes, to him, she's the definition of beauty to him.


End file.
